11 Signs He Doesn't Respect You

If there's one thing I really, truly regret, it's dealing with so many men who didn't respect me at all back when I was in my teens and 20s. It's a mistake that I honestly wish I could take back—and one of the very few regrets I have in my life.

Part of it was my optimism in the nature of the men who disrespected me. I, being a naive idealist, honestly believed that if I was nice enough to people or if I showed them my good side long enough, I'd earn respect.

Of course, they didn't care how nice I was. They expected it because they were jackasses who thought they were better than me. It hurt, and what angered me more about it was the fact that I knew I didn't deserve that kind of treatment.

Eventually, after being burned one too many times, I realized that respect is not something that some people are willing to give you, regardless of how kind you are to them. These days, I immediately cut people out who I feel are disrespectful to me.

I've become kind of a hawk when it comes to figuring out whether someone respects me. Are you worried about the guy you're dating? Do you feel he doesn't respect you? These signs suggest you might be right.

He does little "power plays."

Does he leave you waiting for a reply, knowing that what you're asking for isn't much? Does he regularly insult things you like, just so that he can leave you feeling smaller?

Don't be fooled by these seemingly minor acts. They are serious warning signs! These little ploys are techniques that men, specifically abusive men, tend to use to get you used to his disrespectful behavior.

It's their way of establishing control in lieu of respect and tolerance in relationships. Speaking as someone who's seen this over and over again in abusive relationships, this kind of behavior only gets worse with time. If he's doing this stuff, he doesn't respect you, and the behavior will only get worse.

You're noticing that he doesn't prioritize you.

When a man doesn't respect you, he will treat you like an afterthought. Prioritizing him doesn't mean that you will be prioritized in the same way. It's the truth, and the truth can seriously hurt to hear.

Take a look at how long it takes for him to reply to your text messages, or how getting together for a date tends to go. Does it seem like you have to vie for his attention or bend over backwards to schedule something with him? Then I got some bad news for you.

Men will make time for people they respect, especially if it's a woman they are interested in. If the only way that he'll meet with you is on his terms, he doesn't really respect you and is just spending time with you because he's bored.

He doesn't pay attention to your boundaries, even when you ask him nicely.

You tell him not to touch you, he touches you. You tell him you don't feel comfortable sending nudes, he throws a hissy fit. Sound familiar? Yep, this is boundary-crossing behavior from someone who doesn't understand that respecting boundaries is a basic form of courtesy.

A guy who crosses boundaries is a guy who you need to run away from. I repeat: RUN, don't walk, away from this guy. If he doesn't listen to you when you establish boundaries or insists on trying to convince you to do otherwise, he doesn't respect you.

Trust me when I say that a person who crosses boundaries is not a person who is fit for a relationship. There's nothing you can do to fix a person who has this issue either, so your best bet is to call things off as quickly as possible.

He's a misogynist.

Some men are not capable of respecting women, even if they claim they do. For one reason or another, some men hate women. You can't respect someone that you fundamentally hate.

If a man makes very misogynistic remarks, you have to understand that he doesn't respect you—even if he claims that "you're different." The truth is, guys who are misogynists hate women as a whole, even those who they claim to love.

You can't change his opinion of women, nor can you change his opinion on you. So, be sure to make that a hard pass.

He makes you feel like everything you do isn't enough, even though you're doing everything possible to make him happy.

Ugh, I hate this. I call this "Relationship Frisbee," and it's a sick game to play. Honestly, it's a game that is defined by psychological abuse in relationships because of the negative effects it has on people.

When guys are with a woman they don't respect, they start acting like she should do more and more just to keep him around. They start pulling back on compliments, or even showing enjoyment of being around a girl, just to see how far they go to keep her.

They will toss these "Relationship Frisbees" to see how high you jump. Guys who do this love to see women dance their dance, often knowing that they're hoping for a committed relationship. It's a sick form of entertainment.

But, there's a catch. With guys who do this, they never respect you enough to commit to you. They don't even care that they're hurting you when they do this, so how could they possibly show you any respect?

When you mention your concerns about your relationship, he reacts with derision.

Nothing quite says, "I don't respect you," like mocking your needs, refusing to acknowledge them, or ignoring them out right. Unfortunately though, it's one of those red flags that many people tend to overlook because they worry that they're being unreasonable.

There is nothing unreasonable about voicing concerns in a relationship. There's also nothing wrong with trying to get someone to treat you the way you want to be treated. If someone acts like your needs don't matter, or mocks you for feeling hurt, I've got bad news for you.

When you try to approach your partner about your relationship worries, does he tell you it's all in your head? Or, even more disrespectful, does he tell you to "deal with it?" Does he, God forbid, start mocking you when you cry about it?

If so, he doesn't respect you—and oh, by the way, he's also behaving abusively towards you.

You get the feeling that he acts like you're a possession more than a person.

Not all disrespect tends to come in a hostile form—at least, not on the surface, anyway. Sometimes, disrespect tends to be a little more innocent in appearance. The most common signs a man doesn't really respect a woman are directly related to how he treats her.

Respect is, at its base, what happens when a person sees you as a human being with thoughts, emotions, and morals of your own. The trouble with not respecting womanhood has to do with how he treats you more like an object than a person, showing you that he doesn't really respect you.

Dissect how he treats you on a regular basis. Does he behave like you're an object to him, or like you're more of a pet than a person? If so, he doesn't respect you.

You've caught him lying to you, hiding things from you, and sneaking around.

Though some people might beg to differ, I personally believe that a person who lies to you or chooses to hide stuff from you doesn't respect you. I mean, think about the last person that you lied to. Did you respect them? Probably not, and you may have thought that they'll just take that lie at face value without really caring whether or not they find out the truth later on.

When you regularly have to check a guy's text messages in order to feel safe in your relationship, there's a serious problem afoot. That's not normal, and in most cases, is sparked by behavior that makes you feel insecure in your relationship.

If you regularly find yourself having to "play detective" in order to get the truth out of someone you're seeing, he doesn't really respect you. Moreover, he's probably cheating, so you should probably dump his ass and save yourself some time and heartbreak.

He's constantly checking out other women, or even flirting with them.

A man who respects the woman he's dating will do what he can to make sure that he makes her feel like the only woman for him. If he doesn't respect you, he won't care how his behavior with other girls affects you.

When a man doesn't care how you feel about his behavior, he will most likely start scoping out other ladies—even when you're around him. He might also compare you to other women, even going so far as to point out what is negative about you.

You don't have to stand for this. Speaking from personal experience, the longer you stay with a guy who does this, the worse you will feel about yourself.

My personal suggestion is that you tell him, the following: "Since I'm clearly not enough for you, I should let you check out a girl who is. I'm out of here."

If someone else treats you poorly, he doesn't stand up for you.

This was the breaking point that made me realize that an ex of mine didn't respect me. When his parents would berate me, he wouldn't ever stand up for me. He'd never say, "Don't talk to her like that."

All he'd ever do is sit and stare, as if it was a show to him. When I dumped him, I told him that I deserved to be respected—and only then did it sink in how much pain he put me through.

Sticking up for someone isn't easy, but if a person really, truly respects you, they'll do it. If he never takes your side, it's a surefire sign that you're not respected in your relationship.

He deliberately does things that upset you.

Finally, the biggest catch-all sign for people who don't respect you is the way they purposefully hurt you. If a man does things that he knows upsets you or hurts your feelings, he doesn't respect you and probably never will.

Respect starts with not stepping on other peoples' toes and not doing things you know will hurt others. If they can't even do simple gestures that keep you feeling comfortable or okay, then they are telling you, straight up, that they don't respect you at all.